ionadas local Blog

Business owners, if you receive a negative review, the last thing you want to do is threaten to sue. Here’s an example of why:

High Rocks, a wedding-venue/restaurant in Kent, England, was not happy with a review they received from a customer, and threatened to sue the 44-year-old mother. They also informed her that she could be imprisoned if she did not submit to them the dates and receipts of when she ate there.

Now, I’m no legal scholar, especially of British law, but that doesn’t sound likely to me.

But dubious legal threats aside, this letter has done much more damage to High Rocks than any review in TripAdvisor might have done. Their threats, and other aggressive actions, have now received coverage in The DailyMail, Mirror, The Sun, The Independent, and Newser.

The Streisand Effect is when a powerful person or organization attempts to suppress a piece of information, and instead shines a huge spotlight on it.

Going legal against a review is going to do this. Just about every time.